Which is better 32-bit or 64-bit?

Do you run a 64-bit or 32-bit operating system? or which version of Operating System better to have? If you do not know the answer to this question, you probably do not. 32 -bit and 64-bit versions of Windows is very similar to each other, so that each version of the OS can not be distinguished easily. The easiest way to view information about your computer, Right Click on "My Computer" icon from desktop and select "Properties" from menu. In the new window displays detailed information about the Windows version and type of system. In our case, this "32-bit operating System. But what is the difference between 32 - and 64-bit systems?

When we talk about 64-bit or 64-bit operating systems, we need to distinguish between 64-bit computing, which are important for high productivity, as well as 64-bit addressing to support large amounts of memory.

10 Simple tips to protect PC from Viruses

Was little busy with my college works, so I was not able to write for few weeks. Now I am back.

Well, lets start of with the problem. If your computer is infected, it can suddenly turn off, found that certain files are missing or do not open, or programs work slow. Should I ignore it? Do not think! Moreover, it is easier to prevent than to cure. It is for this and are these simple tips that can help you. Here are few tips...

Download Microsoft Security Essentials Beta 2

Microsoft Security Essentials – A free anti-virus, on which I rely and even prefer others to use, continues to satisfy my needs of security related to PC and data. As I posted earlier “Best Antivirus Software – 2009”, no doubt it continues to win race for this year too.

I have good news for fans and for new adopters that “Microsoft Security Essentials Beta 2” is out now in public and you can test it. A lot of new features are also added to this beta version, with new improved engine and enhanced protection for web-based threats.

Download Fresh Flowers Theme Pack

Download Free Fresh Flowers Theme Pack for Windows 7/Vista and Windows XP.

Download it from here: http://bit.ly/cxcVsW

- For Windows XP users, rename the file extension to .zip and extract the wallpapers to set desktop background.

Why Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 is so Essential

Why is Windows Live Essentials is so essential? As a result of a method that Microsoft Windows 7 doesn't include an iLife-sort suite of client apps pre-installed on Mac, but you'll be able to obtain the free Windows Live Essentials to fill this role with a lot of wonderful new features!

One Microsoft trend Windows Live Essentials continues is that it requires Home windows Vista or Windows 7, and will not run on XP. I saw this earlier with the Internet Explorer 9 Platform preview, which relies on DirectX features only accessible in these newer versions of Home windows to carry out hardware acceleration, as do a number of the Home windows Reside apps.

Reduce Start-up time of Windows by removing ghosted drivers

Are you aware that your computer could be full of Ghosted Devices? Much like humans fear real ghosts, your Personal Computer is also afraid of these virtual ghosts. These ghosts can cause your computer to start up and run at a speed slower than usual.

Ghosted Devices are also known as Hidden Devices, these devices were once connected to your computer but are not connected anymore. Yet Windows keeps a copy of these Devices in the Device Manager and upon startup tries to find these devices on your system. This can result in a slower startup speed.

All about Microsoft Office 2010

Now Microsoft Office 2010 is fully final and ready for sale. The event of Office 2010 has been a long road and with all that time, Microsoft's Office team been hard at work to incorporate a large number of new features into the brand new model to assist make Office even better than ever. The staff strongly centered on the pace of the software as well as including neat options, like grabbing screenshot in Word, and the ribbon interface in Outlook.

With this overview of the Office 2010 RTM, I hope to spotlight several of the new features in Office 2010 that may affects you, the top user. Perhaps a very powerful change right off the bat in Office 2010 is

4 Websites to download Awesome Desktop Wallpapers

A good Hi-Res desktop wallpaper can have an amazing effect on your day. They can brighten up you work space, and even compliment your surroundings. Wallpapers can drastically change the feel and look of your computer and even effect your mood. Hi-Res wallpapers are not just for computer monitors anymore, they can also be used on smaller mobile devices like your PSP (PlayStation Portable), your iPhone and even on some Mp3 players. But where do you find great Hi-Res desktop wallpapers? Today, we’ll look at some sites that have a great selection of wallpapers for your computer and mobile devices.

Make computer sleep automatically after you leave seat

Saving energy by putting your computer to sleep has just gotten a lot easier. Sonar Power Manager is a free utility that will automatically put your computer to sleep whenever you leave your seat. SonarPM lives up to its name by emitting a low frequency from your computer speakers that is bounced back by your body and detected by your microphone. If you leave your computer then the frequency does not bounce back and your computer is automatically put to sleep.

Activate Media Player control Buttons in laptop Touchpad

There are lot of features that exist in the small touchpad, which is used as primary device to control mouse on laptop. Physically there are two buttons which are used for left and right clicks. But virtually there are four more buttons on touchpad itself (at each corner).

Well, these four buttons are not visible but can be used for many applications like to control sound, launch application, control browsing, minimizing & maximizing windows and so on. I thought the best way it can be used in controlling Media Players. This is because, let us suppose we are doing some work and using mouse, at the same time we can also control media player very quickly by simply tapping at corners of touchpad.

Extreme trim Windows 7 Installer ISO

Windows 7 have a lot of applications, fitting according to users requirement and if you do not want some of the apps to install, which will significantly increases speed. To do so, there is an application called “RT Se7en“ to extremely customize and modify Windows 7 installer ISO. Not just removing elements but you can also customize the installation with its user friendly features.

From customization, components removal, tweaking, Unattended Installation to adding Icons, wallpapers, Icons, themes, integrate updates, drivers, and much more can be done with RT Se7en.

Get Latest News Headlines direct on Desktop Screen

One of the best feature introduced by Microsoft is Desktop Gadgets in Windows Vista and Windows 7 too. But when you will open this widget/gadget you will only see the news from msn news website. Further if you will look into the options to configure it you will only see the options  “Feeds for United States” , “ Microsoft Feeds “ and so on related to the same. But when you are in different country other than US, then you will definitely like to see the feed updates of your country. So how to add custom option to this menu ?

The process of adding the feed is quite easy. Here we go…

Use Virtual Windows Operating system in Internet Browser

Ever seen an Operating System in a web browser, your answer might be no ! Then why not have a look at this one - this is one of the first operating system you would have ever seen before - Online virtual operating system - which has been rolled out by windows4all.com, and developed by using Microsoft Silverlight.


When you browse to windows4all.com, it will request us to install Sliverlight on to desktop, if you have already installed the same on to your desktop, then you will be directly redirected to the Operating System i.e. Windows Vista , if you are installing Silverlight for the first time, it will request you to restart the Browser. After installing, just browse to windows4all.com.

You can view Virtual Operating System right in your respective browser, it has a start button (like Windows Vista and older versions), File Explorer (Like Windows Explorer), a Media Player, a Notepad, RSS reader, Paint application, Games like Chess, Solitaire, Spider, Tic-tac-toe, and many more... The most interesting part is that you can also play .wmv and .wma media files in Media Player directly from Local Drive, i.e. from your Hard Drive.

This virtual operating system also supports installation of programs, but the respective program should be developed in Silverlight and be available on Internet or local file system. This online virtual operating system is in alpha stage now ! And will get more features added in future.So, why not give it a try..and don't forget to tell us in comment .

Windows 7 official pricing announced

Microsoft just laid out the Windows 7 pricing grid for us, and here's the big takeaway:

• Windows 7 Home Premium: $199.99
  
• Windows 7 Professional: $299.99
  
• Windows 7 Ultimate: $319.99
  

The prices are lower for users who are upgrading from Windows XP or Vista:

• Windows 7 Home Premium: $119.99
  
• Windows 7 Professional: $199.99
  
• Windows 7 Ultimate: $219.99

But wait, there's more. Starting tomorrow, US customers will be able to pre-order the operating system at much lower prices:

• Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade pre-order: $49.99
• Windows 7 Professional Upgrade pre-order: $99.99

Oh, and don't you worry about scoring a place in line, because we're here to help: later today we'll be giving away 100 codes that guarantee a pre-order spot at the discounted prices, and you'll be able to share the code with two friends. You'll have to act fast, though -- the codes will only be valid for 48 hours. Keep your eyes peeled for our recession antidote post around noon EST, and get your clicky-fingers ready.

Source : engadget.com

Add Windows 7-like Superbar to Vista or XP

As date is approaching for the release of Windows 7, the tweaks for transformation of Windows XP and Vista are also flooding the web. Apart from all those tweaks, even I had written an article for Transformation into Windows 7. Now you can also get the feel of clean Super Taskbar (Superbar) of 7 ' on Vista and XP. In one word, ' ViGlance ' is the solution.

Once you install and run, your taskbar instantly change form, grouping windows into single, 48x48 icon sections. Hovering over each icon shows a popup telling you the name of each window or the names of the windows in that group. Each group popup is dynamically re-sized via "glide" animation—based somewhat on the Aero Peek feature in Windows 7—to fit to the size of the text to be shown, making movement across the task bar seamless. And while it doesn't boast every feature of the superbar, it is a nice tweak if you'd like to bring similar taskbar functionality to your pre-7 Windows installations. ViGlance is freeware, & currently supports Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Download it from Here: ViGlance

Windows Vista SP2 now Available for Download

Windows: Service Pack 2 is officially available for download, which brings better Wi-Fi and BlueTooth connectivity, processor compatibility, native Blu-Ray support, and many more features.

Just as with the release candidate, installing SP2 technically requires having SP1 installed.

Still, for those waiting on even more fixes for Windows Vista, SP2 should be a welcome download. You should see it through Windows Update around June 30, but you can download and install it directly from the links below, as well as check out the official list of changes.

Read Changes in Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Vista SP2 here.

Downloads: Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (32-bit)
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (64-bit)

Source: OS News

12 Days with Windows 7 RC

Since Beta stage of Windows 7, i am using it as primary Operating System on my HP Pavilion laptop, which was 64-bit. And also installed 32-bit RC Built.7100 on 6 May. Installation of RC was pretty good and smooth, one of the best feature I seen that, I did not required to install any drivers. It automatically took almost 95% of the drivers and for that which it did not took, searched for Windows Update and installed automatically, further whole process took only about 20 minutes to reach to new Windows 7 desktop screen. This was the first impression and definitely won my heart !

After reaching the desktop I checked Windows Experience Index, it was like 3.5, 4.3, 3.7, 3.6, 4.5 for Processor, RAM, Graphics, Gaming Graphics and Primary Hard Disk respectively. And my System Configuration is
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo T5200 @ 1.60Ghz ,
Installed RAM: 4Gb ,
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 with 126 Mb dedicated Memory, and
Hard Disk: 128 Gb.
The Base score was 3.5 which was 3.2 in Vista. It was OK, as my laptop is a bit old with low config. !

Microsoft has already announced the system requirements for Windows 7 and they're as expected: a 1GHz or faster CPU, 1GB of RAM for 32-bit systems (and at least 2GB for 64-bit PCs), 16GB of hard drive space (20GB for 64-bit) and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics capability with WDDM 1.0 or higher. This is just for reference.

After searching for new things in 7, for hours. And started installing some important softwares for my use like CCleaner, Mozilla FireFox, Picasa, FeedDemon, Digsby, Comfort Keys, Diskeeper 2009 and " Kaspersky Anti-Virus 8.9 Technical Preview foe Windows 7" which also gave me trial for about 170 days. And after installation of these and Windows Update, restarted my system. It took normal time to restart.

||A Problem and solution: After restart I felt that the system was hanging and even after some 10 minutes I was not able to use it as I was only able to move mouse pointer and nothing else was responding neither Alt+Ctrl+Del was responding nor right click of mouse. Then finally I switched off my laptop and again started, this time I was able to do every thing , and after some time a window pop up which said to send report to Kaspersky Lab, from Kaspersky Anti-Virus as previous start of anti-virus was failed. Then I got the reason why windows was hanging, it was Kaspesky Anti-Virus. After this time I was comfortable with this Anti-Virus.||
A week gone fine without any problem and also discovered many new things which was quite useful and also attractive. This time Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player 12 was much stable & fast and I also tried to see the new feature called " Virtual Xp Mode " but I was unlucky to install it as my processor did not supported visualization. Windows Media Player 12 was able to play a large number of video formats without installing any codec pack. But unfortunately I was not able to play very few formats which forced me to install " Win7codecs " from Shark007. Now I was able to play all formats in WMP 12 smoothly. I love to play all video files in WMP as the video quality is much clear and better as compared to other Media Player like VLC Media Player. WMP 12 also took very low processor as compared to previous one, i.e. WMP 11 in Vista. Now USB drives with media automatically show up in Windows Media Player without interrupting you with dialogue boxes.

In mean time I tried out new features like " Troubleshooting in Action Center " , which I felt a very important feature for general/simple users to trouble-shoot many type of problem related to Audio, Video, Internet and others. It got very user friendly interface and have solution to many related problems to drivers and so on. Windows Online Troubleshooters Pack is also available which have too many options to solve the related problems. Overall, I can say this is the feature which Windows was missing in previous OS.


Paint and WordPad both have interfaces based on the Office 2007 ribbon – although with so many fewer commands, relegating zoom to a second tab doesn't feel like an improvement. It also have new photorealistic icons to match the rest of the Windows interface, and the Brush menu in Paint gives you a much better idea of the different effects you can get, from calligraphy to crayon.

Windows DVD Maker also looks much more like a wizard than an application, but we do get all the options I need to create a DVD with a custom-animated menu.

Coming to network, It was quite easy to share file across other PCs which is connected to our wi-fi LAN. Since 12 days I never got a single error regarding LAN and even multi-player games, they run quite smoothly. Coming to Bluetooth, I can't say anything about this as this got wonderful feature of searching new BlueTooth Devices and moving files between them. Now using bluetooth we can easily connect and pair mobile phones and bluetooth enabled stereo earphones.

Power management is quite good as a new feature of dimming display is also available. Now I get more backup on Battery as compared to Windows Vista and others. Further looking deep, my Battery health is not good, it displays a red cross sign over the battery icon in tray. On putting mouse over it shows " Consider Replacing Batteries ", which again is an important feature which was not present in last version of OS.

Now you can choose whether you want your favourite music or what you've been playing recently on the jumplist. Jumplists are one way of doing this, but to avoid them becoming unwieldy they're now limited to 10 items by default. The streamlined control panel is also full of links to related options and buttons with key options along the top.

On 9th day, don't know why my system got slow. After checking a lot, removing junk file and softwares which I don't use, also checked system performance but did got any clue which could give any trace, why system got slow. Finally I again refreshed Windows Experience Index and the result was shocking, as you can see in the screen-shot:


Don't know why the scores became low, I'm still searching for the possible reasons as the hardware did not change, the scores would have remained same.

Again one thing happened, even though the WEI scores were low , after two days system started working in the same way as it was 3-4 days ago, I mean It again became fast, even this time I don't know how this happened ? I think it may be due to Hard-Disk overheating for last 2 days !

Till this I never got any problem regarding Software Compatibility issue with any softwares on this OS as this was the main drawback of previous OS, i.e. Windows Vista. Now the Security is much more advance and we can also adjust the setting of " User Account Control " according to user need and experience, which was also an annoying feature for some people in Vista.

Finally, I can say this is the perfect OS which I needed for present needs. In these 12 days I installed Windows 7 RC on 8 different systems which belonged to my friends of my college and again it took almost all ( i mean 90 %) drivers of the hardware. And it is working quite well. According to this one can say is Windows 7 going to become driver free OS ??....an ultimate OS from Microsoft.

Windows 7 Upgrade & Virtual XP Support Advisor

When people listen about the upcoming Operating System i.e. Windows 7 from Microsoft. Their first question is whether this OS will support their machine or not? They have a lot of question about driver support and many related to this.

But the answer in simple words is, if your Machine can run Windows Vista, it can run Windows 7. As shown on the Microsoft E7 blog, Windows XP users are required to do a clean install of the Windows 7 RC as well as the final product. Only PCs with Windows Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7.

But why not check out full compatibility issues on own for your peace of before installing new you can just and run the simple tool Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta. Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor examines a machine’s processor, memory, storage, and graphics capabilities, identifies known compatibility issues with installed software and devices and finally provides guidance on how to resolve those issues if possible.

But Before you run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor beta, be sure to plug in any USB devices or other devices such as printers, external hard drives, or scanners that are regularly used with the PC you're evaluating.

Download it from here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=150737

You can run this tool on Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Further, If you're curious whether your processor will support XP Mode in Windows 7 or not, SecurAble is a simple freeware application you can use to find out.

SecurAble is a tiny app from Steve Gibson of the SpinRite fame. When you run the standalone app, it returns information about three features on modern processors: Maximum Bit Length (32-bit or 64-bit), Hardware D.E.P (provides protection against malicious code), and Hardware Virtualization (optimized processor instructions for virtual machines).

If you get a big green Yes in the third slot, your processor supports Hardware Virtualization. If you meet the other requirements—1Ghz processor, 1.25GB of RAM, and 15GB of disk space per Windows virtualization—it's all system go. SecurAble is freeware.

Download it from here: http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

You can also see an article : How many Intel CPUs will fail the XP Mode test in Windows 7? for more details !

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A 3D Desktop Interface That Can Make You More Productive

Here's the video DEMO of BumpTop, a unique 3D desktop for Windows that lets you arrange items on your computer screen just like the way you would organize stuff on a cluttered physical desk.

This application was formerly demoed by Anand Agrawal, really a genius behind this, at TED Conference two years ago !

While Bumptop would work just fine on a regular PC, it would be more fun to use if one had a touch-screen monitor like the HP TouchSmart PC or the Dell XT Tablet.

You can try it out from here : bumptop.com

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Windows XP to Windows 7 - Transformation Pack

Its almost a month since Windows 7 beta experience program had been closed .Geeks and and Windows Vista users now have Windows 7 on their desktop .Or probably they have the opportunity .But still many people are using Windows XP as their default OS .Cause they don't have enough RAM and other system resources that offer a smooth run for Windows 7 . Here comes the use of transformation packs those which can convert Windows XP's appearance to Windows 7 .

After the initial beta release of Windows 7 , many people started creating conversion packs for Windows XP . I found few working Windows XP to Windows 7 transformation packs and here I am sharing them.

1. WIndows XP to Windows 7 transformation pack .

Windows XP to Windows 7 changes wallpaper, icons, bootscreen, Styles, Sounds, Login, Cursor and man other features of Windows XP desktop to Windows 7 .

Download it !

2. Transform Windows XP icons and notifications to Windows 7 by patching user32.dll in Windows XP with that of Windows 7 .

A deviantart user has extracted Windows 7 user32.dll and made available to the Windows XP users . He has also created an easy to use installer that can replace the files safely .

Windows 7 user32.dll changes Icons , notifications and and UAC icon in windows XP .

Download Windows 7 user32.dll for Windows XP.

3. Convert Windows XP to Windows 7 , without any transformation pack .

Vishal Gupta of askvg.com has a lot of tips and tricks on his site for the customization of Windows XP , Windows Vista and Windows 7 .

Here I am giving a link to one of his post which explains few methods to convert Windows XP to Windows 7 ,without any transformation packs . He has also produced a theme style that exactly takes Windows XP to Windows 7 looks .

Download AskVG refresh theme to transform Windows XP's appearance that of Windows 7 .

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